> On Sun 8 Feb, Ulhas Joglekar wrote:
>
> > Why the US doesn't have a strong Left or social-democratic tradition?
>
> Ulhas, does this mean you didn't like the answer I gave you back in
> November? Or was it unclear?
I don't seem to have received your answer. Did you really send it? :)
Sombart's
>famous line was
> that socialism in the United Stated came to grief "on roast beef and apple
> pie" -- i.e., that American workers were paid a lot better than European
> ones, so had less impetus.
I know two traditional answers: a) Open frontier and the ideology built around it. But that was long ago. As far as I know, open frontier ended in 1890s. My question was about the recent period., b) Super profits from imperialist exploitation.
As for the argument that "American workers were paid a lot better than European ones", one could say the same for Sweden. High wages didn't prevent a strong social democratic politics. (if Lenin is to be believed, labour aristocracy is precisely the basis for social democracy !)
> In addition, everyone also cites race and ethnicity. Under that we
> include the two great political compromises over blacks that marked both
> the constitution and post-reconstruction [Footnote 1], and the ethnic
> divisions that marked an immigrant nation.
My question is about the recent period. Do race and ethnicity remain important tools of bourgeois hegemony even today?
Ulhas